Looks like they come with Ubuntu...is that bog-standard Ubuntu, or does it have custom drivers for things like the touch screen? (Basically, I would be curious whether it's easily replaced by another distribution.)
Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
21–30 of 112 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#22One gem I found when I was shopping for a laptop is the Dell Inspiron 7559 (part of their "gaming" series). I bought the most expensive $1300 version last winter and it's been great.
- 4k touchscreen
- i7 Skylake processor w/ identical stats to that on the $2400 15" macbook pro
- 16 GB RAM
- 128 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD (I replaced the HDD with a 500 GB SSD from Amazon)
- NVIDIA GTX 960m w/ 4 GB GDDR5 RAM
It's sturdily made, I take it everywhere. The only thing I miss from my mac is the trackpad. You can't beat mac trackpads. However, the trackpad on the Inspiron is great, much better than many of the others I've tried. When you take into account it has better graphics acceleration than the $2800 macbook pro, you find that dollar for dollar, it's one of the best value laptops out there. (Seriously, compare it to even Dell's XPS 15, you'd have to pay ~$1650 for an XPS 15 to get comparable specs to the $1300 Inspiron 7559. The Inspiron even has double the graphics card RAM of the $2550 XPS 15!)
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#23XPS 13 is well worth it. Its only downside is the webcam looking up your nose. It's lighter than a macbook pro and is about as sturdy.
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#24Yes, I've been using a Retina MacBook Pro 13" (early 15) and 15" (mid 15) and just picked up the xps 13 9350 with iris pro. There are definitely some quality control issues but once you get a working model with no faults (I had one that wouldn't reboot and had terrible coil whine, one that had loose trackpad and yellow tint on screen but this could also be because of Amazon's shitty packaging where the laptop was in…
> so does OS X if you can replace the wifi card
How do you install OS X on this machine ? Any tutorial you can recommend ?
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#25One gem I found when I was shopping for a laptop is the Dell Inspiron 7559 (part of their "gaming" series). I bought the most expensive $1300 version last winter and it's been great. - 4k touchscreen - i7 Skylake processor w/ identical stats to that on the $2400 15" macbook pro - 16 GB RAM - 128 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD (I replaced the HDD with a 500 GB SSD from Amazon) - NVIDIA GTX 960m w/ 4 GB GDDR5 RAM It's sturdily made…
Wow, those are great specs for 1300. what's battery life like?
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#26I went with a ThinkPad P50. It's not nearly as bulky as some think. I specked mine with the Xeon processor, and 1080p screen (but 4k is an option). Also specked everything else as low as possible (HDD/SSD, RAM). I upgraded these items myself after. I now have a server grade processor, have put two 512 SSD in it (one M.2 NVMe), and 64GB of RAM. It's a beast. I can also swap out the LCD panel directly for the 4k panel if I so choose with an after-market one later if I so choose. Initial base price was only around $1400 (was on sale), and about $500 for the SSD/RAM on my own dime (would have been well above $1000 on lenovo's site).
So for ~$1900 I have something that blows the MacBook Pro out of the water.
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#27I personally prefer the XPS 15 for the quad-core CPU and discrete graphics, but it looks like getting it to play well with linux could take some work, and there might still be some issues: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2317843.
Out of curiosity, what has you disappointed with Apple's new laptops?
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#28Does it run macOS? No? In which case no its not a good replacement for a MacBook Pro.
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#29I carried a 2013 Dell XPS Developer Edition and a MacBook Air in parallell for a while this year. Note that not all of this necessarily applies to more recent versions of the XPS.
* My XPS has a really awful touchpad. When I first got it, it was definitely my main reservation. I tried a 2014 model and noted that it wasn't much improved.
* The battery life is much, much worse on the XPS, which is probably the main reason why I find myself reaching for the mac. I've kept Ubuntu 12.04 on it, so Linux power management has likely gotten better but there's still no comparison.
* other than that, I've loved my XPS. It's super light, has a brilliant keyboard, excellent specs and still works well after three years.Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#30I went with a ThinkPad P50. It's not nearly as bulky as some think. I specked mine with the Xeon processor, and 1080p screen (but 4k is an option). Also specked everything else as low as possible (HDD/SSD, RAM). I upgraded these items myself after. I now have a server grade processor, have put two 512 SSD in it (one M.2 NVMe), and 64GB of RAM. It's a beast. I can also swap out the LCD panel directly for the 4k panel…
P.S. I do own the a 2014 MB Pro as well, so not being ThinkPad bias. Just stating the options and route I chose as a replacement.